The little fiesta that could

It started out small, La Fiesta de San Juan 2000, but careful planning and tending turned it into a big winner that sports some of the top talent in Latin music.

One of the largest Latin festivals in Tampa this year is being planned in the upstairs office of a car rental office on Spruce Street.

Yes, that's right, a car rental place. Downstairs, a Japanese couple with designer luggage wait at the counter to step into their Buick. Upstairs, the telephones ring like crazy with calls from promoters, agents and music fans wanting to know about the event.

It's a scene that seems perfectly natural to Joshua Gonzalez.

"We wanted to do this for the community," said the part owner of Accurate Rent-a-Car.

For three years, Gonzalez and Kenneth Luciano have operated Accurate Rent-a-Car. But they also love music. Latin music.

So on Sunday, after one year of planning, they will present La Fiesta de San Juan 2000. It's a celebration of Latin heritage for the entire Tampa Bay community.

Approximately 20,000 people are expected at the daylong event, which will include back-to-back live music on two stages, amusement rides and lots to eat: Rice and beans, beef empanadas (pastry stuffed with ground beef), alcapurrias (fried green bananas stuffed with ground beef) and more.

Twelve acts are scheduled, the lineup a mixture of local and international talent. It's a chance to see authentic Latin music at the kind of show that artists popular in today's Latin craze -- such as Ricky Martin and Marc Anthony -- would have played before they crossed over to the mainstream market.

"We were going to do something small," Gonzalez said. Then, they hooked up with Tampa promoter Narciso "Ciso" Saavedra, owner of Papagallo Promotions, who has been in the business for 30 years.

From Puerto Rico comes headliner Eddie Santiago, who has given salsa music some 20 years of love ballads: Lluvia (Rain), El Triste (Depression) and James (Never).

Two other Puerto Rican classics are Johnnie Rivera, known for his salsa, and Cana Brava, known for merengue.

It's going to be a big party, Saavedra said. But it will include some serious moments.

[Times file ]Tito Puente

Last week, Latin music lost its Mambo King, Tito Puente, 77, who died of complications from heart surgery. An international bandleader and percussionist who gave the world 118 albums and six decades of rhythm, Puente also was a fixture in the Tampa Bay area.

He visited often because his cousin, Millie Puente, a musician in her own right, lives here. One June day in 1994, Tito Puente even gave an impromptu outdoor concert, hopping on two flatbed trucks and playing a six-pack of timbales with a local Latin jazz combo backing him.

The show, for the grand opening of his cousin's beauty salon (which has since closed), was so Tito, Saavedra said.

"He was real down to earth, not one of these celebrities surrounded by bodyguards. He would shake hands with you, talk with you about his family, about his music."

Fans at last year's Clearwater Jazz Holiday saw the same side of Puente -- a friendly, down-to-earth guy you'd never suspect was a superstar of Latin music.

A tribute will be paid to Puente during Sunday's festival, said Saavedra, with some of the lineup and timbales players from New York performing his tunes.

Accurate is hoping to organize more Latin music events in the future.

"Every year cities like Chicago, New York, Miami, Orlando and Los Angeles stage major Hispanic music festivals that now are very traditional and became engraved in the cultural landscape of these Hispanic communities," Saavedra said.

In recent years, La Mega, which operates Spanish radio stations throughout the nation (locally, it has WBDN-FM 96.1 and 820 AM), hosts MegaFest every October. It is part of a traveling show, with acts performing at all the cities in which La Mega has a radio station.